Tuesday, April 27, 2010

My Very First Tea Party Rally..

Ever since I witnessed disgruntled octogenarians everywhere protesting the "socialist" heath care bill while their pockets swelled with social security cash, whiny bigots literally breaking down in tears while saying the words "I want my country back", and scores of people who would fail a High School Civics class holding misspelled signs with pride - I just knew that one day I would attend a Tea Party Rally. Some people hope to one day pilgrimage to Mecca, I had dreams of being surrounded by thousands of minor league Klansmen who want people to think that taxes are the real reason they have such a distaste for our 44th President. I mean, we can finally drop the "its just a bunch of concerned citizens" pretense, can't we? A couple of weeks ago shitloads of people around the country gathered to scream bloody murder about taxes despite the fact that federal income taxes on middle class families are at historic lows and Obama gave 95% of those ungrateful sons of bitches tax cuts. Not for nothing, but if it walks like a racist and talks like a racist, chances are they are holding a sign calling the President a "communist".

I know, broad generalizing is wrong, and I'm sure there are folks in the Tea Party who do indeed have legitimate concerns. I just contend that that number is relatively small, about the same minuscule percentage of strippers who are thrusting their glitter encrusted pelvises to actually pay for college courses. But hey, I've been wrong before. So after a year of fearing that attending a Tea Party rally would result in me going all Nat Turner on a motherfucker, I finally trusted myself enough to mingle with what I believe to be the most disgruntled people in America. Here is what happened when yours truly decided to enter the lions den.(Town Point Park, Norfolk Virginia)

I arrived on the premises around 5:30 or so, about an hour and a half late. Sure, I know that my penchant for tardiness has "subpar journalist" written all over it - but after I learned that I had just missed a speech delivered by Bishop E.W. Jackson Sr, I couldn't have been happier. See, nothing is wrong with black opposition of Obama, but the good Bishop is one of those self loathing black folks who incessantly shields republicans from the racism charge by claiming the ones making said charge are playing the "race card". Because him and black folks of his ilk are too stupid to know that Tea Party folks are just using them in a "I have a black friend, I can't be racist" sort way, I'm glad I missed him - the mere sight of him giving a rhetorical softshoe routine would have forced me to become rather indignant and break whatever cover I attempted to maintain.

The first thing I saw as soon as I entered the premises were these kids holding signs. Because I didn't want to bring any undue attention on to myself(I have a thick beard and long dreadlocks mind you) I refrained from yelling "Your parents really need their asses kicked you little shits!"(It was extremely difficult to hold that back) Using kids to peddle your flimsy political philosophy is rather unseemly. Then again, I'm the same guy who has every intention of using my niece this summer to meet rather flexible, low self esteem having women. Anyway, remember that scene in "Malcolm X" when Malcolm went to Mecca and he was being shadowed by those CIA agents with video cameras? As much as I tried to blend in, I always felt like the CIA agent in the aforementioned scenario.

This is Karen Hurd, the founder of the Hampton Roads Tea Party who was the person speaking as I walked up. The rampant misinformation that came out of this woman's mouth would have been laughable if the people in attendance weren't willfully eating it up like hungry pigs at a trough. As I stood there listening to an unrepentant liar whose main agenda was to scare the living shit out of every unenlightened bigot within the sound of her voice, you could tell that she was doing her best Michelle Bachmann impression. That said, this woman's rhetoric was so exceedingly clumsy that she made Michelle Bachmann look like Maya Angelou.

Um, Yeah. Whatever gets you through the night lady.

Here are a few crowd shots. I'd say there were roughly 300 people there, nowhere near Town Point Park's capacity.

Of course there were an abundance of signs referencing the Constitution and how the President is apparently wiping his ass with it. But Obama was a Constitutional Professor for Christs sake, lecturing him on that document is like holding a sign in front of Karinne Steffans' house that reads "Remember the Blowjob!". Or holding a sign in front of R Kelly's house that reads "Remember the Pre-teen". I asked one of these folks about the Constitution and it turns out that I know more about the mating habits of the Fossa than any of them know about the Constitution. If people like Andrew Breitbart are so concerned with people smearing the Tea Party, he should be more concerned with them making it so easy for assholes like me.

This is purely anecdotal, but the staff there seemed to hand out Tea Party materials to everyone except me. I smiled, said "hello!", I even distributed nods of approval. Nothing. To be quite honest, they seemed like they were actively avoiding me. Maybe my agenda was obvious, I dunno - its not like I was wearing a Public Enemy shirt with Che Guevara wristbands. Either way, what better way to silence the folks who think that you are movement motivated by racism than to embrace everything within a square mile radius with a pulse. It was just rather telling to me.

Yes, there was black people. Two things on that. 1.) I saw that there was a nationally coordinated effort to have more and more black people at Tea Party rallies that day. Which is nice optics, I'm sure, but it doesn't mean a goddamn thing. Like I always say, there are self loathing black people who would join the Klu Klux Klan if they were allowed to. 2.)The black people pictured above were brought in by a local candidate running for office, I found this out when I saw someone come by and relieve them of their sign holding duties. Not only is their whole movement astroturfed, so is their black support. To my brother and sisters, with the economy in the shape that it is, there is money in part-time conservatism. Get that paper homey, I won't judge you.

What's a Tea Party Rally without the "Obama as the Joker" sign? It's sort of like going to a Stevie Wonder concert, you know you're going to hear "Superstition" before the night is done.

This pair of tits is Bob Marshall. Not for nothing, but thank god for Wikipedia pages because otherwise I'd be spending an inordinate amount of time detailing the many varieties of shit that makes up this rather lackluster human being. He kept bragging about being the architect of Ken Cuccinelli's Health Care Lawsuit against the Federal Government, which is obviously frivolous, but that didn't stop him from lathering up the dopes with the pipe dream of Health Care repeal. The contempt that a lot of elected republican officials have for their constituents is amazing. The one thing that I noticed as I listened to Mr. Marshall attempt to stick the proverbial landing on what has become standard Teabagger boilerplate, is that these events are nothing more than third rate comedy roasts of President Obama by bigots - with each speaker desperately trying to outdo the other with their insults of the President. Coming from a guy who feels the need to get an STD test every time I even think about some of my past dalliances, the mere fact that I felt like taking a shower after Bob Marshall spoke is really saying something.

As I prepared to leave, I noticed a guy holding this utterly despicable sign. When he was saw me taking a picture of it he quickly dropped the sign to his side and folded it up. When he past me I just smirked, shook my head slowly and told him "Too late motherfucker!". At that point I could care less about maintaining any sort of cover.

But as I left the Tea Party Rally that day, I realized that the man holding the "Barry Soetoro Is our Terrorist" sign is a microcosm of the entire Tea Party Movement. When their tax arguments are proven to be fraudulent, when they don't seem to have the same critiques of "Big Government" when Arizona does it, their silence in the populism department when it comes to Wall Street - why don't they just admit that its all about racism already. Like the guy with the sign, own your racism for Christs sake - I'd at least applaud you for being honest for once.

6 comments:

An exceptionally well-written account of a first-hand experience. The photography is good and your perspective is invaluable. I'm glad you were able to witness that event and share it with the rest of us.

Cosign w/Brother Omi. I recall seeing somewhere (not so ironically, I think it was The Daily Show) where they proved that Fox was bolstering the size of these 'events' by editing footage from Palin's vice-presidential campaign run into the Tea Party crowd footage...all in a lame effort to give credence to their inaccurate assertion that 'thousands' of Americans are pissed with the President's apparent raping of the Constitution. Sadly, we all know that most of them just hate the fact that he has Melanin. Great post, HC.

These are some of the most uneducated, ignorant, and bigoted people. Whats worse is how stubborn they are to admit they understand have the shit that is being told to them. They eat all this along with that Ayn Rand crap that they're all fed. I don't know how you could go there and actually not feel like man-kind doesn't deserve a fate of extinction. That must have been depressing.

Good job. Well done. You know,I'm getting to the point where I've stopped wondering about the tea partiers motivations:

if their motivation is not racial animus and they want to talk about their policy "ideas" that's a relatively short discussion (as you pointed out most of them don't know anything about the Constitution they wave around and the rest of the arguments about govt growth same at least one adminsitration late -I guess they just slept through the Bush admin).

On the other hand, if their motivation IS racial, well, we can't really talk about that with the tea partiers because they'll just deny it.

So at the end of the day, I'm moving towards ignoring them. We have ample evidence in pictures, video, and news accounts of racism in their movement. Their policies are bankrupt. We'll just have to let the voters figure it out.